Thursday, 26 September 2013

Being a CEO is better than being a cleaner,

At 5.30pm on
the same day as cleaners appeared in front of a select committee at parliament a public
meeting was being held here in Palmerston North on the same issue.

Helen Kelly
President of the CTU presented the case of why the Nat's industrial relations amendment bill should not be
passed.

But first here is what went on at the select committee. After the hearing ended Tau Henare a
National Party List MP who is well known for his flapping tongue couldn't help himself and voiced comments on the national news, "that if Mrs. Sinota, one of the
cleaners making a submission, didn’t like her job, she should leave and let
someone else do the job"…this idiotic statement was typical of the kind of thoughtless and big headed
statement often made by this National Party Lap-dog.I think Mrs. Sinota was very brave indeed to appear in front of the committee...she deserved a medal not an insult from an idiot supreme.

Cleaners have made a tearful plea to
MPs not to pass an employment law change that could see contracted workers lose
their jobs if small businesses take over cleaning and other contracts.

Mareta Sinota was one of three
cleaners who appeared at Parliament's industrial relations select committee on
Thursday to submit against part of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill
which would exempt small companies from having to provide continuity of
employment when they take over a contract.

The law would exempt cleaning,
catering, orderly and laundry businesses with fewer than 20 employees from
having to offer work to the previous contract company's workers.

Mrs. Sinota is one of about 30
Spotless cleaners who clean Parliament's toilets, vacuum floors and empty the rubbish
late at night.

"It's a
hard job, a dirty job, but we don't mind being cleaners. We are proud to clean
the most important house in the country," she said.

The cleaners,
who are contracted by Spotless, received $14.10 an hour - just above the
minimum wage of $13.75 - and Mrs. Sinota says she spends about $100 on
transport for work each week, making it a struggle for her and her family to
survive on a cleaner's wage, and the threat of losing her job if a smaller
business undercuts Spotless' price is an added concern.

Sosefina
Masoe and her husband have worked as cleaners at the Police College
in Aotea for eight years.

In that time,
Spotless cut their hours, before losing the contract to OCS - which kept their
jobs, but cut their hours further.

She says they
are worried the contract could change again and - if the law passes - they
could lose their jobs.

Mele Peaua, a
Spotless cleaner at Hutt
Valley High
School, said small, cheap companies will drive
down the quality of cleaning, and if the cleaners lose their jobs, they have no
redundancy protection.

Tau Henare’s
stupid and degrading comments brought this response from one on line reader,
and I quote:

“Tau Henare's comment on national
television that if Mrs. Sinota didn’t want her job under Nationals proposed
legislative changes she should find other employment is typical of the sick,
cynical, inhuman and out of touch mindset of the National Party and their many
supporters in NZ business.

An absolutely disgraceful comment
from a politician who leads a privileged life on the back of the NZ taxpayer
while the likes of Mrs. Sinota clean up after his bowel motions!

What a pig of a "man" (if
you can call him that) and what a pig of a Party he represents! Imagine what
this Party is doing to hard working NZers behind their backs if they have the
gall to insult toilet cleaners on national television! Despicable and
unacceptable behaviour from a government politician - the last National
politician who denigrated a waiter for doing his job was forced to resign - the
same fate should befall Tau Henare! What a dog!

Murray Georgel DHB CEO

Since I had to
leave the Palmerston North Helen Kelly meeting to attend another event, I wasn't there for the discussion, but the Leisure Centre was pack out, but I
realised just how badly treated our cleaners and care givers are and how favorably employers are being treated by this government.

One
could be forgiven for thinking that workers are now being auctioned off by the
government to the lowest bidder and I agree completely with the statement about
Henare. Its no wonder that Labour, the Greens and the Mana Party are rising in
the polls. And one last word, the Boss of our District Health Board has just received a ten thousand dollar wage increase...taking him to five hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year...while the hospital cleaners who work for Spotless receive a wage you can not even live on...

1 comment:

Rankbadyin.
said...

The District Health Board's recent increase for the hospital boss could easily have been used to create a team of hospital cleaners who are the the pride of NZ. Likewise, some of the money that's been thrown around Tau and his friends might be diverted to ensure that Parliament's toilets are (emphatically) flushed with success.